Geographical range | Eurasian steppe |
---|---|
Period | Bronze Age |
Dates | XIII cent. b.c. - VII cent. b.c. |
Preceded by | the local variant Andronovo culture and Cherkaskul culture |
Followed by | Itkul culture, Sauromatians |
The Mezhovskaya culture [1] (mistranscribed as Meshovskaya culture [2] ) is an archaeological culture of the late Bronze Age (13th to the beginning of the 7th century BCE). It was localized in the Southern Urals and named after the village of Mezhovka on the banks of the Bagaryak river in the northern part of the Chelyabinsk Oblast.
The ancestors of the Mezhovskaya culture were the people of the Cherkaskul culture with the participation of the people of the Tobol taiga, with traditions and ceramics of the steppe zone of the Ural and Kazakhstan (Andronovo culture), especially the Sargarino-Alexis culture. [3]
The Mezhovskaya culture reflects the further stages of development of the Ugric community in active contact with the Indo-Iranian population of the Ural steppes. [4]
The Mezhovskaya culture formed from the admixture of local Srubnaya-like ancestry (c. 74%) with additional Nganasan-like (c. 18%) and Ancient North Eurasian (c. 8%) admixture. The later proto-Ugric genepool is inferred to have formed by further Eastern influc, resulting in a gene pool of c. 48% Srubnaya-like, c. 44% Nganasan-like and c. 8% ANE-like ancestry. It is thus considered that the Mezhovskaya culture was composed of a mixed population of Indo-European (Andronovo culture) and Ugrian (Cherkaskul culture) tribes. [5]
In 2015, a genetic study of ancient dwellings of the Mezhovskaya culture was made of people found at the Kapova Cave (Shulgan-tash). Three individuals (RISE523, RISE524, RISE525) of the Mezhovskaya in Southern Ural from 1400 BC to 1000 BC were studied. [6] The analysis of their paternal haplogroups determined one individual to belong to the haplogroup R1a1a1 [7] , while the other two were determined to belong to R1b, which historians had thought were the result of migrations of early Indo-Europeans from the Black Sea to Siberia and Middle Asia via the Urals. [8] [9]
The autosomal genetics does not seem to have died out, but contributed in part to the later Ugric-speaking groups. [10]
The Mezhovskaya culture developed through two stages:
Dwellings were excavated at Mezhovka, Kapova cave, Berezovka and other locations. The dwellings were unfortified with an area of 1 - 35 sq. m., and were more likely to occur in the forest-steppe of the Urals, and rarely in the Ural forests proper. The number of dwellings ranged from 1 to 10–15. They were usually shallow huts built with frame-pillar design.
The Mezhovsky culture had a diversified economy with a combination of production (especially cattle, metal) and assigns (hunting, fishing, gathering) forms of economy.
Cemeteries were small in size (up to 36 graves) and are found mainly in the forest-steppe regions of Bashkortostan. Most were composed of earthen mounds over elongated holes in the ground, with corpses on their backs with the head to the west-northwest. Cremation was rare. Equipment was often included in the graves, usually vessels, less often tools and weapons, and the remains of the funerary feasts.
The Mezhovsky culture exemplified the final phase of the Bronze Age of Ural forest zone and had a significant influence on the formation of the transition of the Ural cultures from the Bronze Age to the early Iron Age. [12]
The Corded Ware culture comprises a broad archaeological horizon of Europe between c. 3000 BC – 2350 BC, thus from the late Neolithic, through the Copper Age, and ending in the early Bronze Age. Corded Ware culture encompassed a vast area, from the contact zone between the Yamnaya culture and the Corded Ware culture in south Central Europe, to the Rhine on the west and the Volga in the east, occupying parts of Northern Europe, Central Europe and Eastern Europe. Early autosomal genetic studies suggested that the Corded Ware culture originated from the westward migration of Yamnaya-related people from the steppe-forest zone into the territory of late Neolithic European cultures; however, paternal DNA evidence fails to support this hypothesis, and it is now proposed that the Corded Ware culture evolved in parallel with the Yamnaya, with no evidence of direct male-line descent between them.
The Mansi are an Ugric Indigenous people living in Khanty–Mansia, an autonomous okrug within Tyumen Oblast in Russia. In Khanty–Mansia, the Khanty and Mansi languages have co-official status with Russian. The Mansi language is one of the postulated Ugric languages of the Uralic family. The Mansi people were formerly known as the Voguls.
The Yamnaya culture or the Yamna culture, also known as the Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture, was a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archaeological culture of the region between the Southern Bug, Dniester, and Ural rivers, dating to 3300–2600 BCE. It was discovered by Vasily Gorodtsov following his archaeological excavations near the Donets River in 1901–1903. Its name derives from its characteristic burial tradition: Я́мная is a Russian adjective that means 'related to pits ', as these people used to bury their dead in tumuli (kurgans) containing simple pit chambers.
The Andronovo culture is a collection of similar local Late Bronze Age cultures that flourished c. 2000–1150 BC, spanning from the southern Urals to the upper Yenisei River in central Siberia. Some researchers have preferred to term it an archaeological complex or archaeological horizon. The slightly older Sintashta culture, formerly included within the Andronovo culture, is now considered separately to Early Andronovo cultures. New research shows Andronovo culture's first stage could have begun at the end of the 3rd millennium BC, with cattle grazing, as natural fodder was by no means difficult to find in the pastures close to dwellings.
The Catacomb culture was a Bronze Age culture which flourished on the Pontic steppe in 2,500–1,950 BC.
Poltavka culture was an early to middle Bronze Age archaeological culture which flourished on the Volga-Ural steppe and the forest steppe in 2800—2200 BCE.
The Battle Axe culture, also called Boat Axe culture, is a Chalcolithic culture that flourished in the coastal areas of the south of the Scandinavian Peninsula and southwest Finland, from c. 2800 BC – c. 2300 BC. It was an offshoot of the Corded Ware culture, and replaced the Funnelbeaker culture in southern Scandinavia, probably through a process of mass migration and population replacement. It is thought to have been responsible for spreading Indo-European languages and other elements of Indo-European culture to the region. It co-existed for a time with the hunter-gatherer Pitted Ware culture, which it eventually absorbed, developing into the Nordic Bronze Age. The Nordic Bronze Age has, in turn, been considered ancestral to the Germanic peoples.
Sintashta is an archaeological site in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It is the remains of a fortified settlement dating to the Bronze Age, c. 2800–1600 BC, and is the type site of the Sintashta culture. The site has been characterised as a "fortified metallurgical industrial center."
Hungarians, also known as Magyars, are a nation and ethnic group native to Hungary and historical Hungarian lands who share a common culture, history, ancestry, and language. The Hungarian language belongs to the Uralic language family, alongside, most notably Finnish and Estonian.
Okunev culture, sometimes also Okunevo culture, was a south Siberian archaeological culture of pastoralists of the early Bronze Age dated from the end of the 3rd millennium BC to the early of the 2nd millennium BC in the Minusinsk Basin on the middle and upper Yenisei. It was formed from the local Neolithic Siberian forest cultures, who also show evidence of admixture from Western Steppe Herders and pre-existing Ancient North Eurasians.
The Sintashta culture is a Middle Bronze Age archaeological culture of the Southern Urals, dated to the period c. 2200–1900 BCE. It is the first phase of the Sintashta–Petrovka complex, c. 2200–1750 BCE. The culture is named after the Sintashta archaeological site, in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, and spreads through Orenburg Oblast, Bashkortostan, and Northern Kazakhstan. The Sintashta culture is thought to represent an eastward migration of peoples from the Corded Ware culture. It is widely regarded as the origin of the Indo-Iranian languages, whose speakers originally referred to themselves as the Arya. The earliest known chariots have been found in Sintashta burials, and the culture is considered a strong candidate for the origin of the technology, which spread throughout the Old World and played an important role in ancient warfare. Sintashta settlements are also remarkable for the intensity of copper mining and bronze metallurgy carried out there, which is unusual for a steppe culture. Among the main features of the Sintashta culture are high levels of militarism and extensive fortified settlements, of which 23 are known.
In recent years, many megaliths have been discovered in the Urals: dolmens, menhirs and a large megalithic cultic complex on Vera Island.
The Proto-Uralic homeland is the hypothetical place where speakers of the Proto-Uralic language lived in a single linguistic community, or complex of communities, before this original language dispersed geographically and divided into separate distinct languages. Various locations have been proposed to be the Proto-Uralic homeland.
Multi-cordoned Ware culture or Multiroller ceramics culture, translations of the Russian: Культура многоваликовой керамики, romanized: Kul'tura mnogovalikovoj keramiki (KMK), also known as the Multiple-relief-band ware culture, the Babyno culture and the Mnogovalikovaya kul'tura (MVK), are archaeological names for a Middle Bronze Age culture of Eastern Europe.
The Kama culture is an Eastern European Subneolithic archaeological culture from the 6th-4th millennium BC. The area covers the Kama, Vyatka and the Ik-Belaya watershed.
The Ural Mountains extend from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Ural River and northwestern Kazakhstan in the south over a distance of 1,500 mi (2,400 km), the boundary between Europe and Asia. Human occupation begins in the Paleolithic and continues to this day.
The Turbasli culture - archaeological culture 5th-7th centuries b.c., it is located on the left bank of the middle reaches of the Belaya River, between the mouths of Sim and Chermasan. Opened by N.A.Mazhitov in 1957–1958. Materials excavation: New Turbasli settlement, burial mound in the Blagoveshchensky District, Republic of Bashkortostan etc.
The Cherkaskul culture is an archaeological culture of the Bronze Age, situated in the south of the Ural and Western Siberia. It is named after the village Cherkaskul located in the Kaslinsky District of the Chelyabinsk Oblast. Opened K.V.Salnikov in 1964.
The Scytho-Siberian world was an archaeological horizon which flourished across the entire Eurasian Steppe during the Iron Age from approximately the 9th century BC to the 2nd century AD. It included the Scythian, Sauromatian and Sarmatian cultures of Eastern Europe, the Saka-Massagetae and Tasmola cultures of Central Asia, and the Aldy-Bel, Pazyryk and Tagar cultures of south Siberia.
In archaeogenetics, the term Western Steppe Herders (WSH), or Western Steppe Pastoralists, is the name given to a distinct ancestral component first identified in individuals from the Chalcolithic steppe around the turn of the 5th millennium BC, subsequently detected in several genetically similar or directly related ancient populations including the Khvalynsk, Sredny Stog, and Yamnaya cultures, and found in substantial levels in contemporary European, West Asian and South Asian populations. This ancestry is often referred to as Yamnaya ancestry, Yamnaya-related ancestry, Steppe ancestry or Steppe-related ancestry.